Inheriting Digital Assets

Starting January 1, 2015, Delaware residents may pass on their emails, social networking accounts, digital photos, and other digital assets to their heirs.  According to an ABC News article, they may do so under Delaware’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act (HB 345), which makes Delaware the first state to pass such a comprehensive law addressing the inheritance of digital assets.

The act was backed by the Uniform Law Commission, a nonprofit organization that, according to its website, “provides states with nonpartisan, well conceived, and well drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.” The article quotes a commission official who stated that inheritance laws regarding digital assets need updating because: 

• digital assets are replacing tangible assets,
• documents are being stored in electronic files rather than file cabinets, and
• photographs are uploaded to websites rather than printed on paper.

The act updates Delaware’s inheritance laws by (1) creating a procedure for requesting and gaining access to a decedent’s digital assets and, (2) if Delaware law governs the will, allowing an executor access to such assets regardless of where the decedent lived or where the digital account provider is located.

Under the act, “digital assets” include data, text, emails, documents, audio, video,  images, sounds, social media content, social networking content, codes, computer source codes, computer programs, software, software licenses, or databases, including the usernames and passwords, created, generated, sent, communicated, shared, received, or stored by electronic means on a digital device.  

Connecticut’s law addressing a decedent’s digital assets applies only to email accounts (CGS § 45a-334a).